1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a walking robot, and more particularly to a walking robot, in which driving structures of a pitch direction hip joint and a knee joint of a leg are enhanced.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, walking robots having various shapes, such as biped and quadruped shapes, have been developed for household, military, and industrial purposes.
Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-0050273 discloses a humanoid, i.e., a biped walking robot.
The humanoid disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-0050273 includes a trunk, a head provided at the upper end of the trunk, a pair of arms provided at both sides of the upper portion of the trunk, and a pair of legs provided at both sides of the lower portion of the trunk.
Each of the legs includes a thigh link connected to the trunk through a hip joint unit having 3 degrees of freedom, a calf link connected to the thigh link through a knee joint having 1 degree of freedom, and a foot connected to the calf link through an ankle joint unit having 2 degrees of freedom, thus being capable of moving with a total of 6 degrees of freedom. Thereby, various lower body movements as well as walking movements, such as running, walking, etc., can be achieved.
Particularly, the walking movements, such as running, walking, etc., are achieved mainly by repeated rotations of pitch direction hip joints and knee joints, and when a foot contacts the ground, an impact of a considerable degree from the ground is applied to the robot. At this time, it is possible to alleviate the impact to some degree by controlling the pitch direction hip joints and the knee joints.
However, since the respective joints of the conventional walking robot, particularly the pitch direction hip joints and the knee joints, are independently operated by respective actuators having different capabilities, the control mechanism for such is complicated in order to effectively alleviate the impact.
Further, since the actuator for operating the knee joint is disposed adjacent to the knee joint, a large inertial force is generated from the leg while walking and thus applies a large load to the actuator for operating the hip joint.